Last week was an exciting time of year for anyone interested in politics. The last week of June is when the U.S. Supreme Court hands down all its decisions. While this year was perhaps not as exciting as last year, what with the overturn of Roe v. Wade, there were some interesting opinions handed down that will change the way we teach politics. I’ll be rewriting some lectures as a result, but the case I was most excited about was Moore v. Harper.

In this case, the court rejected independent state legislature theory, which claims that the Constitution gives near-absolute authority over elections to state legislatures. This means that no one in a state could question state legislators about district lines or election results, or really anything that had to do with elections in the state. Not the state courts, not state election officials, not the lieutenant governor who is in charge of elections in Utah and, to a certain extent, not even the state constitution. State legislative power would be absolute when it came to election results.

The current political conversation regarding this theory is that people on the left were concerned that if state legislatures had absolute control over election results, then in 2020 former President Trump could have asked Republicans in legislatures to throw out election results that did not favor him. People on the left considered that a threat to democracy. People on the right believed that the theory could protect states from the explosion of litigation that has ensued since the 2000 election in which they accuse Democrats of suing over every issue regarding elections. If the state legislature had absolute power, there would be no incentive to sue, as the courts could not overrule their decisions.

The specific issue that brought the theory to the highest court happened when the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that a political gerrymander created by the North Carolina Legislature was unconstitutional according to the state constitution. Republican state legislators asked the Supreme Court to rule that, under independent state legislature theory, the courts had no authority to weigh in on district boundaries.

The first question was whether the Supreme Court should even hear the case because new judges in North Carolina threw out the ruling about the gerrymander, giving Republican legislators what they wanted without the Supreme Court intervening. Even though many were suggesting the court set aside the case, the majority ruled that it had jurisdiction. Then, in a 6-3 decision, the majority ruled that the independent state legislature theory was not a correct reading of the law. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “when legislatures make laws, they are bound by the provisions of the very documents that give them life,” which is the reason I’m happy about the decision.

For me, it’s less about the dangers of litigation or the former president. For me, this ruling underscores what I think is the most important foundational principle of the United States Constitution: checks and balances. If you have read my pieces over the years for the Standard-Examiner or taken one of my classes or ever heard me speak, what you may have realized is that I’m a huge fan of the Constitution. The primary reason is that the document takes as truth that political power can be abused, so in response, the Constitution disperses it. The founders understood that too much power in any one person’s hands or any one agency’s control is the definition of tyranny. So, they took all the power of government and split it up, making it nearly impossible to get anything done. They even made the power of majority desires subject to checks from the other branches, as well as the document itself.

I was very happy that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did on this theory. In my reading of the Constitution, there’s no room in any area for one branch to have absolute power. State legislatures cannot have unilateral control over election results. They can make decisions, as they should, as representatives of the people who voted them into office. That’s what a republic is. But those decisions are subject to judicial review, as they should be. Every branch of government is subject to a check and balance by the other branches. Every single action by every single person in government is “bound by the provisions of the very documents that give them life.” That’s what the rule of law is. That’s what protects us all from tyranny.

Leah Murray is a Brady Distinguished Presidential Professor of Political Science and the academic director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University.

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